“Now in contact with G670,” uttered Zimbardo, referring to the asteroid that Crass and his crew had rigged. The screen was lit up before him. “Two minutes and four seconds to go from right...now!” A countdown clock was set at his left. The pirate captain checked his figures one more time. He had plotted the orbit of Mars, the thrust and direction of the power units on G670, the speed of the red planet in its course and its rotation, the anticipated acceleration of the asteroid, and the time delay involved in making adjustments to its course. He had checked his computations half a dozen times and then commanded three others to do so. Three, two, one... read the countdown clock. Zero. Zimbardo pressed the button. He remained motionless for at least ten seconds. Then he sat back and exhaled loudly. He had not noticed that he hadn’t been breathing. Then he turned and smiled broadly to his audience. “Five and a half days from now, everyone in the Earth-Moon-Mars system will know who we are!” * * * * * Oritz Konig was making another report to Richard Starlight. “The Space Command ships came onto the site and found no sign of human presence. They quickly replaced the sats, got them activated, and then checked data. I don’t know how to explain it, Richard, but an asteroid is missing. Other than that, there is nothing different in the area of the Belt that had gone dark, but obviously the pirates have done something with an asteroid. It’s not a very big one--only about 100 yards in diameter, maybe a little more--but it’s vanished.” * * * * * The Starmen and miners had been walking more than three hours, and covered a distance of about ten miles. “A wall,” announced Zip. “We’ve come to the end of it at last.” “You’d think that a race that can make elevators go sideways could have come up with a way to traverse this gymnasium quicker and easier than walking,” grumbled Joe. “Didn’t I hear you say that this place is great?” inquired Zip. “It is. Back then, I meant ‘great’ like ‘magnificent’; but now it just feels like ‘great’ as in ‘really big.’” The company came up to the wall. There was a bank of elevators in front of them and several sets of doors to their right. In a large open gathering place, there were many platforms like flat beds, with rods coming out of one end and sticking up perpendicular to the beds. “Joe,” said Mark, investigating one of the beds. “Here’s your easier way to travel. These things must be some sort of dolly or truck. I saw a lot of them where we first came out of the elevator, but I didn’t recognize them.” “And we didn’t know how big the room is, either, so we didn’t look for means of transportation,” added Zip. “No wheels,” said Joe, peering at the apparatus, “and doesn’t need them. Magnetic, probably, with this iron floor. Man,” he said with exaggerated disgust, “we could have floated in comfort the whole length of the place.”